surviving to thriving: planning with purpose

Remember that time I tried the Day Designer, then promptly switched to the Life Planner? Well, in the process, I decided that the Life Planner may not be for me at this point. And I bought another Day Designer. Are you with me?

It’s working really well, and I’m having an easier time staying on top of things. I don’t think there is a perfect planner that I could recommend that would work well for each of you. I’m a list-maker so the lists in this planner are what seal the deal for me. I also had a big need to schedule my days a little better, and the daily pages include an hourly schedule. I can’t promise I won’t change my mind next year, but for now this is what my planner looks like. 

I also set some priorities and boundaries for myself, I felt like I was always trying to sneak in laundry or work while my priority should have been with my family. This isn’t something I say to make anyone else feel bad, it was something I needed to change because it made me feel extremely guilty.  Hands-down, having less things makes your house super easy to keep tidy, but when you talk about cleaning and scrubbing floors and baseboards, those are the things that I have to make time for.

So I give myself enough time to do a load of laundry, clean the kitchen, sweep the floors, and make sure everything is picked up once the kids are in bed. It doesn’t take long at all, and of course, Allen is great about helping me get it done quickly. My goal is on Saturday morning to spend a little time while the house is quiet, cleaning up from the week. Mopping, dusting, changing sheets. But, to be honest, I feel like I’m always doing something extra in the evenings. I just cap it off at about 45 minutes, but usually end up seeings something on a kitchen cabinet and wiping those down, or noticing fingerprints on the back door, so I quickly take care of those. Doing a little all week and then dedicating time on Saturday to give it a good cleaning, truly makes it manageable.

I also became pretty resourceful with my time. I tried to find the things I was spending way too much time on and make a change to gain some of my time back. One thing that takes a ton of time? Meal planning. I would spend all of my time scouring Pinterest and cookbooks to make a dinner plan, make a list, and then rarely follow through. Or we would end up having the same things over and over again.

So I started using eMeals again. It was completely different than the first time I used it, because now there is an app involved. With the app, I can select the meals I want for the week and it populates a grocery list for me. Plus, they have a ton of eating styles, so if I want Clean Eating this week and Paleo next week, I just switch on their site and have both plans on my phone. We put our favorites in the recipe box and we are set for the week in about 10 minutes.

 

Mainly, I’ve taken away from this, don’t be afraid to delegate. We’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I’ll probably have someone come deep clean the house the day before. We started having the yard work done by someone else, rather than spending any pretty free days outside working in the yard (and basically that’s just a summertime thing, so it isn’t a year round expense). It meant not eating out as much or going to Starbucks as often, but we were willing to trade in some of the mindless spending for things that really matter to us.

I know a few of you have mentioned other things throughout this series, so I plan on doing a gift-giving/holiday post, as well as cover a few other things like digital clutter. Is there anything else you might be wondering about?